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Speaker 1: M. Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the podcast where

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Speaker 1: bad people are talked about, and in this case, the

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Speaker 1: bad people are coal mining company executives in specific and

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Speaker 1: capitalists in general. And my guest for part two, as

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Speaker 1: with part one, is Spencer Crittenton. Spencer, the inventor of

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Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons more or less essentially um and uh

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Speaker 1: the the show runner for Harmon Quest. Um, even though

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Speaker 1: your name is not Harmon. But we'll just we'll just

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Speaker 1: skip right past that. It's all marketing, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: all marketing. Yeah, Spencer, are you a how do you?

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Speaker 1: Are you a big fan of the First World War? You?

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Speaker 1: Are you a World War One stand? Yeah, I'm a

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Speaker 1: I'm a big World War One stand. You love trenches,

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Speaker 1: trench foot, oh my god, and like mustard gas. Oh

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Speaker 1: hell yeah, mustard gas, Oh my god, child soldiers being

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Speaker 1: massacred by the thousand, just pumping people into a meeting exactly.

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Speaker 1: World War One was awesome for everybody, but it was

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Speaker 1: a particularly good thing for coal miners and for unions

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Speaker 1: in general. Um, because the United States, right, we we

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Speaker 1: got involved in World War One. Spoilers, um and uh

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Speaker 1: it uh it it wouldn't. Um, we had to go

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Speaker 1: to like the the whole country had to get on

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Speaker 1: a war footing because the US military and on once

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Speaker 1: upon a time actually was weird the idea that we

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Speaker 1: would have a standing military that was bigger than just

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Speaker 1: a couple of thousand guys um. And so we had

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Speaker 1: to like really quickly make an army because we just

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Speaker 1: kind of didn't have one when World War One kicked off.

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Speaker 1: We had like a few thousand guys on horses who

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Speaker 1: were used to like shooting it out with Poncho Villa,

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Speaker 1: but that was about it. So we like had to

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Speaker 1: build this army up suddenly. And that's like that that

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Speaker 1: takes a lot of fucking coal, right, Like at this point,

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Speaker 1: all of your fucking industry bullshit is fueled by coal.

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Speaker 1: So we had to get a lot of coal real

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Speaker 1: fucking fast. Um. And the president also had to institute

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Speaker 1: a draft because we didn't have a whole lot of soldiers,

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Speaker 1: and this constricted the labor supply. So US suddenly needs

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Speaker 1: a shipload more coal. And also there's a lot less

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Speaker 1: uh labor age men that you can hire to do it.

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Speaker 1: And this means, I don't know, if you understand if

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Speaker 1: you know much about economics. I do not, but I

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Speaker 1: know that when you have less of something, it gets

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Speaker 1: more valuable. So suddenly coal miners, which had kind of

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Speaker 1: just been treated like trash before this, as you might

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Speaker 1: have guessed from the fact that they machine gun them

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Speaker 1: from an armored train, Um, they're valuable. Now you can't

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Speaker 1: just machine gun them. Um. And so the federal government

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Speaker 1: actually kicks in some protections from miners and starts treating

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Speaker 1: them really well. Uh. The National War Labor Board, which

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Speaker 1: President Wilson instituted to help manage American industry, pushed for

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Speaker 1: the eight hour work day, granted raises to laborers, and

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Speaker 1: supported equal pay for women doing what was then still

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Speaker 1: considered to be men's work. Equal pay for equal work

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Speaker 1: was the idea, and where we are still not there. Uh,

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Speaker 1: but they start talking about it now right like it

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Speaker 1: stops being prior to World War One. Like if you're

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Speaker 1: kind of on the fringe, if you're saying emen should

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Speaker 1: get paid for doing the same job that a man

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Speaker 1: is doing, like that's a loony kind of like how

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Speaker 1: as soon as the fucking like everybody's laughing about basic

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Speaker 1: income being like a fringe position And then a plague

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Speaker 1: hits and everybody's like, oh, maybe this is actually a

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Speaker 1: normal thing that should exist. Yeah. Yeah, So all of

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Speaker 1: that ship starts to happen because of this whole, this

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Speaker 1: whole war thing, And I don't want to make it

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Speaker 1: out to like Wilson was like super pro labor because

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Speaker 1: the i w W, the Wobblies, the group who, like

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Speaker 1: one of their members wrote the song that been in

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Speaker 1: the last episode with Wilson brutally cracks down on them

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Speaker 1: because there are a lot of them are like fucking anarchists, right, Um,

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Speaker 1: they're very interesting group because like the the the guy

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Speaker 1: who wrote Solidarity Forever fucking hated the communist like governments

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Speaker 1: um that that came out of like the end of

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Speaker 1: World War One, and also hated capitalists. Interesting group, interesting

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Speaker 1: person worth reading about. But President Wilson fucking cracked the

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Speaker 1: ship down on those guys because, um, they were seen

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Speaker 1: as being like two politically radical and it's easy to

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Speaker 1: punish radicals during a wartime. But the actual union men working,

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Speaker 1: like the the UMW, like these coal miners, these were

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Speaker 1: seen as being like fundamentally pretty American and they were

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Speaker 1: also necessary. So Wilson did support miners war, and things

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Speaker 1: got more and things got a lot better for particularly

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Speaker 1: mine workers during this war. Um so yeah. President Wilson

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Speaker 1: declared at the outset of US involvement that a lack

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Speaker 1: of coal was quote the most serious danger facing the

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Speaker 1: United States in this current crisis. He declared coal miners

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Speaker 1: immune to the draft. And for the first time, these

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Speaker 1: rough and tumble rednecks who were used to being treated

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Speaker 1: like disposable assets, started to realize that they were actually

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Speaker 1: really valuable and kind of critical to the nation working.

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Speaker 1: Uh And they had to promise not to strike during

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Speaker 1: the war, but in exchange for this promise, they received

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Speaker 1: a substantial raise. Now, the result of all this was

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Speaker 1: that by the time the war ended and the troops

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Speaker 1: started to return home, coal miners had started to get

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Speaker 1: used to the idea that they were valuable, skilled workers

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Speaker 1: performing a critical task. Now, if you're at Dusk Capital, Spencer, no,

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Speaker 1: that's fine, it's it's it's it's super boring, um and

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Speaker 1: and a real snooze fest. Uh So. Dust Capital is

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Speaker 1: a book written way back in eighteen sixty seven by

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Speaker 1: Karl Marx who Karl Marks was the founder of the

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Speaker 1: Marx Brothers. He invented uh comedy. Um, but he also

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Speaker 1: had some theories about labor. Yeah, and the big mustache

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Speaker 1: and had some theories about labor to um. Lennon read

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Speaker 1: a book on him in the song American Pie Uh

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Speaker 1: anyway uh so um yeah, Karl Marks in Dust Capital

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Speaker 1: landed on something that's generally referred to as immiseration theory

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Speaker 1: and Admiseration theory is the idea that, um, because cutting

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Speaker 1: wages and benefits to workers is the easiest way to

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Speaker 1: increase profits. Right, So, like, if you operate a coal mine,

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Speaker 1: the cost of building um, you know, mine carts, the

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Speaker 1: cost of donkeys to like toe mine carts, the cost

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Speaker 1: of you know, electricity to light the minds. These are

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Speaker 1: all fixed costs, right, These things cost what they cost.

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Speaker 1: But you can cut what you pay the workers, you

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Speaker 1: can cut their benefits, and that will increase your profits.

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Speaker 1: So because doing this is the easiest way to increase profits,

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Speaker 1: Mars was like workers in capitalist societies are going to

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Speaker 1: be victims of a gradual chiseling away of their quality

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Speaker 1: of life. Um, so pay will get cut, you know,

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Speaker 1: and you know you you might you might say that

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Speaker 1: things in the modern day that would be an example,

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Speaker 1: this would be like monitored bathroom breaks, robotic trackers to

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Speaker 1: inform your boss when you're not loading Amazon packages. Enough

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Speaker 1: things that, in Marks's words quote, destroy the actual content

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Speaker 1: of his labor by turning it into a torment. Uh,

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Speaker 1: they transform his life into working time and drag his

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Speaker 1: wife and child beneath the wheels of the juggernaut of capital.

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Speaker 1: But all in production of surplus value or at the

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Speaker 1: same time methods of accumulation, and every extension of accumulation

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Speaker 1: becomes conversely a means for the development of these methods.

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Speaker 1: It follows therefore, that in proportion as capital accumulates, the

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Speaker 1: situation of the worker be his payment higher low must

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Speaker 1: grow worse. So this is this is This is a

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Speaker 1: big part of Marxist theory, and it suggests Marx kind

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Speaker 1: of suggested that amiseration is what helped tends to produce revolutions.

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Speaker 1: People get so fed up with being abused and chiseled

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Speaker 1: away at that they revolt. Um. Now, this is definitely

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Speaker 1: true in a number of cases, and you can point

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Speaker 1: to certain specific cases where like, this is what happened

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Speaker 1: to workers and it caused a revolt. But I think

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Speaker 1: one of the issues that kind of people who are

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Speaker 1: really in the market Marxist theory have is that they

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Speaker 1: kind of over apply it. And it is a fact

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Speaker 1: that that a miseration theory actually doesn't always hold true,

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Speaker 1: and in fact often does not hold true. More than

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Speaker 1: a century of scholarly analysis has actually shown that living

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Speaker 1: standards for workers often raising time in various capitalist countries,

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Speaker 1: and yet those workers still engage in revolts. And so

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Speaker 1: the question is if if standards don't necessarily get chiseled

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Speaker 1: away at, but those workers still revolt, what is causing revolts?

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Speaker 1: And so there's alternate theories that have been proposed to

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Speaker 1: to explain this. James C. Davies, an American scholar, theorizes

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Speaker 1: that social revolutions often occur after what he calls needs satisfaction,

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Speaker 1: which is generally measured by income, has risen for a

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Speaker 1: period of time and then sharply drops. So this causes

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Speaker 1: a sudden and massive gap between expected and obtained satisfaction,

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Speaker 1: which provokes action on behalf of the aggrieved. So Marx

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Speaker 1: is saying that, like workers, things just get worse and

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Speaker 1: worse and worse and worse until they're forced into action.

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Speaker 1: Um and Davies is suggesting that social revolutions occur after

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Speaker 1: things actually get better for a while and then suddenly

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Speaker 1: get worse and people just are furious, and you can see,

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Speaker 1: like the strikes that we talked about in the last episode,

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Speaker 1: we're kind of the result of miners just getting chiseled

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Speaker 1: away at for so long that they got really piste um.

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Speaker 1: And what we're going to talk about today is more

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Speaker 1: an example of what Davies is talking about, is things

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Speaker 1: getting better, like during World War One, things get a

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Speaker 1: lot better for miners, and then after World War One

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Speaker 1: that changes sharply and people get really fucking piste off,

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Speaker 1: and everything that we're about to to talk about today happens.

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Speaker 1: So things were all sunshine and roses for labor during

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Speaker 1: the war. Woodrow Wilson crackdown, like I said on the

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Speaker 1: I w w UM, but the government was willing to

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Speaker 1: work with unions to express the proper amount of patriotism. Um.

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Speaker 1: That said, they were still terrified of anything that smelled

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Speaker 1: even a little bit like communism. And this fear only

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Speaker 1: increased is the Russian Revolution heated up and the Bolsheviks

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Speaker 1: got down to some serious Bolsheviking as soon as the

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Speaker 1: war I mean, it wasn't even a joke. As soon

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Speaker 1: as World War One was over and more young men

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Speaker 1: returned home, that opened up the labor market, and so

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Speaker 1: bosses began to correspondingly cut wages and benefits to their

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Speaker 1: workers again to try to claw back more control, power

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Speaker 1: and profit, and this led to immediate strikes. Obviously, m yeah,

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Speaker 1: the strikes started among the nation's steel workers, but in

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Speaker 1: over the course of like the fall of nineteen nineteen

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Speaker 1: early nineteen twenty, there were like several thousand strikes in

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Speaker 1: the United States from all sorts of different works, including

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Speaker 1: police officers. Cops have unions and they strike to they

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Speaker 1: just also break up strikes by other unions. UM so again,

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Speaker 1: maybe something to think about. So in September nineteen nineteen,

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Speaker 1: half of America's steel workers go on strikes and Woodrow

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Speaker 1: Wilson uses federal troops to violently break the strike, and

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Speaker 1: this for shadows how labor would be treated over the

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Speaker 1: coming years. But while the steel workers could be crushed

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Speaker 1: rather simply, mine workers were in a much better position

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Speaker 1: to resist. For one thing, they had more institutional support

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Speaker 1: within the government because of like systems that had been

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Speaker 1: set up during World War One, to support miners um

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Speaker 1: so they were also the best organized chunk of laborers

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Speaker 1: within the country. By this point, United Mine Workers was

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Speaker 1: more than half a million men strong, and the union

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Speaker 1: then possessed the ability to shut down almost the entire

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Speaker 1: coal industry. And if you shut down the coal industry,

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Speaker 1: you basically shut down the United States. Now, by September

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Speaker 1: of nineteen nineteen, when the u m W held their

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Speaker 1: annual convention, workers were pissed. Wages had been slashed and

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Speaker 1: workers had been laid off as soon as the fighting stopped,

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Speaker 1: and demand felt this made miners eel as if they'd

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Speaker 1: been bait and switched, which they sort of had been,

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Speaker 1: and they Yeah, this particular chant was common among miners

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Speaker 1: at the time, and I think it gets across the

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Speaker 1: general feeling of many. We mind the cold of transport soldiers,

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Speaker 1: we kept the home fires all aglow, we put old

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Speaker 1: Kaiser out of business. What's our reward? We want to know.

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Speaker 1: So they're a little bit pissed. Yeah, So the union

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Speaker 1: calls a strike. Uh, and this was still illegal under

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Speaker 1: wartime laws which had not been lifted yet. In President

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Speaker 1: Wilson promised that the law will be enforced, which was

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Speaker 1: generally taken to mean that federal troops would be used

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Speaker 1: to shut down any strike, and a tedious game of

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Speaker 1: political back and forth followed, with the government issuing court

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Speaker 1: injunctions against the strike that rendered the union unable to

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Speaker 1: call for a walk off. So the unions like, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna strike. The government says, actually, that's fucking illegal, and

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Speaker 1: the union says, okay, we're not going to call for

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Speaker 1: a strike. But then four hundred thousand coal industry workers

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Speaker 1: just walk off the job anyway, But it's not a

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Speaker 1: union strike. It's just four hundred thousand Americans being like

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Speaker 1: fuck you. Then like, what are you gonna do. You're

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Speaker 1: gonna come to our houses and kill us all, Like, all,

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Speaker 1: we gotta deliberate the coal mines. Yeah, reopened the economy,

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Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Yeah, you can go in there and liberate them.

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Speaker 1: Do the job if you think it's so fucking easy.

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Speaker 1: So the problem with this was that winter had started

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Speaker 1: a hit by the point that all these guys come

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Speaker 1: off the job, and co shortages during the fall and

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Speaker 1: winter mean that a lot of Americans start suffering right

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Speaker 1: because they can't heat their homes um and this pisss

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Speaker 1: off a lot of normal American citizens who might otherwise

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Speaker 1: have sympathized with the union because like they're freezing in

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Speaker 1: their houses. Um. So, the union was ultimately stymied in

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Speaker 1: this nationwide strike by a mix of public disapproval and

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Speaker 1: the fact that there were still a lot of non

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Speaker 1: union mines in West Virginia, in Mingo County to be specific.

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Speaker 1: And these were very productive minds that put out enough

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Speaker 1: coal to keep critical US industry afloat. So normally Americans

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Speaker 1: are suffering, but the things that are necessary to maintain,

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Speaker 1: like the nation's existence, that ship keeps going because of

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Speaker 1: these non union mines in West Virginia. And eventually the

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Speaker 1: UMW is forced to cave and the miners have to

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Speaker 1: go back to work. And yeah, the bosses buy in

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Speaker 1: large one this round, and their victory made it clear

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Speaker 1: to the union men that they could not successfully execute

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Speaker 1: a nationwide strike without unionizing the minds of West Virginia.

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Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Yeah. So that's good and valuable lesson, a

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Speaker 1: valuable lesson. So to us, all, to us all, um,

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Speaker 1: As I have often said, Mingo County is the enemy.

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Speaker 1: Um still true to this day. So Mingo County was

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Speaker 1: the mine operators stronghold in West Virginia, and they fought

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Speaker 1: like devils to keep union organizers out and to clamp

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Speaker 1: down on any individual miners who might try to change

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Speaker 1: the status quo. They were aided in this by the

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Speaker 1: Logan County Sheriff's Department, which was wholly owned corporate interests

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Speaker 1: and dedicated to crushing worker organization. The cause of the

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Speaker 1: union was made all the more difficult by cultural factors

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Speaker 1: in Mingo County. Most of the miners there were farmers first,

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Speaker 1: men who saw coal mining as a temporary placeholder gig

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Speaker 1: when prices were lower crop yields were poor. They didn't

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Speaker 1: truly identify as miners, and so it was hard to

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Speaker 1: organize them. Mingo County remained resistant to the cause of

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Speaker 1: organized labor until early nineteen twenty. Now, in the wake

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Speaker 1: of that strike, the union goes to the table with

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Speaker 1: the bosses and you know, they basically try to iron

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Speaker 1: out what differences they can so that there won't be

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Speaker 1: another strike because it still hurts the mine company's profits.

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Speaker 1: And this arbitration commission like concludes by recommending a significant

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Speaker 1: raise for union miners twenty seven to avert future strikes.

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Speaker 1: So union miners get a raise. Non union miners, the

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Speaker 1: miners in Mingo County who had allowed the bosses to

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Speaker 1: in the strike, they don't get a raise because they're

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Speaker 1: not part of the union. So these guys just fucked

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Speaker 1: over the union and a strike, and then they immediately see, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is why we have a union, because it increases

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Speaker 1: the amount of money that we make. Um. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: over on the other side of the holler, their union

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Speaker 1: neighbors were suddenly getting paid as shipload more Mingo County

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Speaker 1: miners started demanding raises from their bosses, pointing out that

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Speaker 1: they loyally kept working during the strike and this surely

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Speaker 1: meant that they deserved the increased pay. And this did

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Speaker 1: not convince the people who were their bosses. Shocking. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm shocked. As Robert Shogun writes, quote the response of

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Speaker 1: the Howard Colliery at Chadowroy typify and management's attitude. The

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Speaker 1: Howard manager offered a modest increase, but then boosted prices

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Speaker 1: in the company store when some miners complained they were

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Speaker 1: pistol whipped by mine guards. Yeah. Not. This is actually

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Speaker 1: probably going to surprise a lot of people, but most

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Speaker 1: folks don't like to be pistol whipped. It's not great.

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Speaker 1: I know, I know, I take some controversial takes, and

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Speaker 1: that's going to be one of them. But I'm generally

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Speaker 1: anti pistol whipping. I'm not gonna say there's a time

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Speaker 1: in a place for pistol whipping, but it's a bad

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Speaker 1: thing to receive. You know, you'd rather be the giver

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Speaker 1: of a pistol whipping than the receiver. Yeah, mm hmm.

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Speaker 1: So at Burnwell colon Coke, one impatient miner posted a

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Speaker 1: notice at the entrance to the miners of Burnwell Coal Company,

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Speaker 1: we shall have this raise. We want this raise which

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Speaker 1: the government had granted us. The response from the president

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Speaker 1: of Burnwell was not long in coming. He said, as

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Speaker 1: one of his employees recalled, he would let his mind

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Speaker 1: go until moss grows over it, until it falls in

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Speaker 1: the Huckleberry ridge before he would ever work a union man.

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Speaker 1: Eighty of the ninety two Burnwell miners walked off their

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Speaker 1: jobs and sent two of their number to Charleston to

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Speaker 1: ask District seventeen for a charter. Hundreds of other miners

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Speaker 1: elsewhere in Mingo did much the same thing. In accordance

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Speaker 1: with union policy. They were extructed by the head of

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Speaker 1: the union to return home, reclaim their jobs, and reopen

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Speaker 1: the minds. Then the union promise they would be welcomed

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Speaker 1: into the union. The discontents did as they were bidden.

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Speaker 1: As the last week of April began, the organizing drives

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Speaker 1: swept like wildfire through Mingo County. The union counted three

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Speaker 1: hundred new members in one day, and hundreds more than next,

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Speaker 1: And of course, true to form, the bosses fired every

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Speaker 1: single man who came into work with a union card,

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Speaker 1: and they then sent armed goons in to force these

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Speaker 1: men out of their company homes. So hundreds of workers unionized.

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Speaker 1: They wind up homeless, their families wind up homeless, and

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Speaker 1: the union has to set up and pay for miners

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Speaker 1: camps to put these guys up and keep them in

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Speaker 1: their families alive while they begin to unionize the minds

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Speaker 1: of Mingo County and start to strike. So, how how late?

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Speaker 1: How much later was this than the last episodes? This

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Speaker 1: is eight years later? This is nineteen nineteen twenty one

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Speaker 1: is when all this happens. So it's like enough time

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Speaker 1: to forget, but not like for the people who lived it.

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Speaker 1: They're like, oh ship not again. Yeah, yeah, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of the people, the people organizing this strike on

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Speaker 1: behalf of the union had also in large part taken

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Speaker 1: part in the ship that happened in the last episode.

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Speaker 1: And also all of the folks cracking down on them,

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Speaker 1: like the people in charge of Baldwin Felts and everything.

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Speaker 1: All of these folks are a lot of these folks

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Speaker 1: are still around, so both sides have more experience and

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Speaker 1: are bringing what they experienced at the last set of

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Speaker 1: strikes into this one. So um yeah. And one of

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Speaker 1: the things that's interesting to me about this is that

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Speaker 1: these workers had refused to unionize and it kind of

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Speaker 1: sucked over the union, but then the union basically spends

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Speaker 1: a shipload of money buying them tents and food and

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Speaker 1: helping to like take care of them as they begin

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Speaker 1: their strike, because that's just the way the ship works.

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Speaker 1: So the whole situation infuriated larger and larger sections of

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Speaker 1: the minor Mingo County minor population as they see their

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Speaker 1: friends and family members kicked out and made homeless. And

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Speaker 1: by May nineteen twenty three thousand of Mingo Counties four

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Speaker 1: thousand miners had been unionized. Now they were aided in

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Speaker 1: this by the fact that much of the local government

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Speaker 1: in Mingo County was pro union. The town of Mattawuan,

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Speaker 1: which is like one of the big towns in the area.

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Speaker 1: The town of Mattawuan's mayor, cable Testerman had been elected

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Speaker 1: by miners and he was loyal to them rather than

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Speaker 1: the mind bosses. Yeah, it's a funny name, that's all.

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Speaker 1: It's a funny name. Yeah, a lot of great names

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Speaker 1: in this people didn't know how silly their names were.

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Speaker 1: Back in the day when the county sheriff's so so

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Speaker 1: not the county sheriff's the state police in West Virginia

371
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Speaker 1: were in the pay of the mind bosses. And like

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Speaker 1: the boss of the state police was a captain named Bracus,

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Speaker 1: and he was totally pro mine like corporate mind company.

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Speaker 1: But like a lot of the county sheriffs were very

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Speaker 1: pro minor. Some of them were pro like. It kind

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Speaker 1: of depended on the county a lot like Logan County

377
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Speaker 1: was really shitty and pro mine company. Um, but Mingo County,

378
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Speaker 1: you know, things were a little bit more you you

379
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Speaker 1: had a lot more sympathy for the miners. And the

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Speaker 1: police chief of the town of mattawan was profoundly pro minor,

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Speaker 1: and his name was Sid Hatfield. Like the old governor

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Speaker 1: Doc Hatfield, Sid came from a family that was infamous

383
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Speaker 1: for fighting and feuding, and at twenty seven years old,

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Speaker 1: Sid was one of the best gunmen in the eight

385
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Speaker 1: Then as now, the redneck farmers of West Virginia were

386
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Speaker 1: all quick to brag about their handiness with a gun,

387
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Speaker 1: but even among a crowd of marksmen, Sid Hatfield stood out.

388
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Speaker 1: He always carried two pistols. He was known in duels

389
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Speaker 1: for shooting them through his pockets, sometimes just to kill

390
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Speaker 1: people faster he was. He was kind of a badass, um. Yeah.

391
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Speaker 1: He always carried two long pistols, and he was said

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Speaker 1: to be equally accurate using either hand. He had a

393
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Speaker 1: habit of showing off his skill by tossing a potato

394
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Speaker 1: into the air and splitting it open with a shot

395
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Speaker 1: from his gun. In nineteen fifteen, he had a semi

396
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Speaker 1: famous duel with a mine foreman that left the foreman dead.

397
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Speaker 1: Hatfield had claimed self defense and been cleared of all charges. Now,

398
00:20:43,080 --> 00:20:46,640
Speaker 1: in general, local law enforcement around Mingo County was unwilling

399
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Speaker 1: to help the mind companies evict union men from their

400
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Speaker 1: homes uh. The sheriff's department would only assist when proper

401
00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:55,040
Speaker 1: notice was given, and when that and that interfered with

402
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Speaker 1: the desire of mine operators to throw out unionized workers

403
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Speaker 1: on the same day they were fired. So again the

404
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:04,200
Speaker 1: bosses called on the services of the Baldwin Felts Detective Agency.

405
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Speaker 1: Many of these men were deputized by friendly West Virginia sheriffs,

406
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Speaker 1: which gave them official license to enforce laws in the

407
00:21:09,920 --> 00:21:12,919
Speaker 1: mining camps and to carry guns. The bosses use them

408
00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:16,359
Speaker 1: to collect rent, to guard payroll, and to suppress union organizing.

409
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Speaker 1: So that's good. I'm in favor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You

410
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:25,320
Speaker 1: might compare them in Shadow Under like nightA rant or whatever,

411
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Speaker 1: which is why Shadow Run has so many, like four

412
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Speaker 1: pay police departments. That's a thing that happened, like that's

413
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Speaker 1: not like a like yeah, so like the Pinkerton's. Yeah,

414
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Speaker 1: there are another and they do. They do a lot

415
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Speaker 1: of union crushing. It's just it's mainly Baldwin Felts here

416
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Speaker 1: in West Virginia. So the Baldwin Felts men were particularly

417
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Speaker 1: despised for their undercover work. The agency regularly deployed men

418
00:21:47,320 --> 00:21:50,080
Speaker 1: to hide among the miners and pretend to be union sympathizers.

419
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Speaker 1: One of these men, Charlie Lively, went so far as

420
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Speaker 1: to organize several Union local outposts in Mingo County during

421
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Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen So Lively would like set up

422
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Speaker 1: union groups and then he would provide names of all

423
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Speaker 1: the people who were secretly meeting to the company, who

424
00:22:04,119 --> 00:22:07,520
Speaker 1: would then like fire and and evict those people. Um

425
00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:10,720
Speaker 1: Lively and his agents would also act as agent provocateurs,

426
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Speaker 1: so when like miners would hold protests, they would create

427
00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:16,160
Speaker 1: violence at those protests and able in order to justify

428
00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:19,840
Speaker 1: violent crackdowns by mine guards. That happens today right well,

429
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Speaker 1: all the time, dude, all the fucking time. Yeah, yeah.

430
00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:27,359
Speaker 1: So the head of the Mingo County operation was a

431
00:22:27,359 --> 00:22:30,600
Speaker 1: fellow named Albert Felts, one of the leaders of the

432
00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:33,439
Speaker 1: Baldwin Felts Agency. He and his men had been tasked

433
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:36,080
Speaker 1: by their employer with serving a series of evictions on

434
00:22:36,119 --> 00:22:39,640
Speaker 1: families who lived in Mattawan. Since the local police, led

435
00:22:39,640 --> 00:22:42,240
Speaker 1: by Chief Hatfield, would not help, he asked his brother

436
00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:44,760
Speaker 1: Tom Felts, who was directing the agency, to send him

437
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:48,000
Speaker 1: a bunch of reinforcements. Mattawan was the heart of unionist

438
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:50,800
Speaker 1: resistance in Mingo, and Albert knew that evicting families there

439
00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:54,000
Speaker 1: would be dangerous work. Uh so he he's there were

440
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:56,680
Speaker 1: about six other men. He approached Mayor Testament and asked

441
00:22:56,720 --> 00:22:59,879
Speaker 1: if it would be okay for uh he and his

442
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:02,040
Speaker 1: in to set machine guns up on the roofs of

443
00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:04,239
Speaker 1: some local buildings in Manawan in case things got out

444
00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:06,639
Speaker 1: of town. He's basically like, hey, we gotta evict a

445
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:09,159
Speaker 1: bunch of people might piss off the locals. Can I

446
00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:11,359
Speaker 1: put machine guns up on your roof to murder your

447
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:16,159
Speaker 1: citizens if they get angry? Now, the mayor made a

448
00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:19,439
Speaker 1: controversial call and said, no, you cannot set up machine

449
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:24,280
Speaker 1: gun nests on the roof of local buildings. Brave. Yeah,

450
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:28,919
Speaker 1: So he's he's the opposite of the Jaws mayor. Um

451
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:31,080
Speaker 1: kind of. I don't know the Jaws mayor doesn't really

452
00:23:31,119 --> 00:23:33,639
Speaker 1: square with this, but he's everyone's cultural touchdowne for a

453
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 1: bad mayor, so imagine him is not looking like that?

454
00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:39,720
Speaker 1: Um so yeah. Albert offers next to bribe the mayor

455
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:41,639
Speaker 1: with a thousand dollars for the right to set up

456
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:43,639
Speaker 1: a killing field in the middle of town, and to

457
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:48,479
Speaker 1: his credit, the mayor says no, Well, can I at

458
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 1: least set up a killing field? Yeah? What can? I

459
00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:54,600
Speaker 1: just want to have the ability to machine gun every

460
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,679
Speaker 1: one of your voters. Why is this a problem. What

461
00:23:57,760 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 1: about some sort of death bog? What about a deaf bog?

462
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:07,600
Speaker 1: What about I don't know, a murder forest, murder forest. Yeah.

463
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:12,040
Speaker 1: So on May nineteenth, nineteen twenty, Albert Felts his reinforcements

464
00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:15,199
Speaker 1: arrived seven men, including his other brother, Lee Felts. This

465
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 1: gave him a total of thirteen armed detectives. Uh. And

466
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:21,840
Speaker 1: detective at this point is a word that just means mercenary. Like,

467
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 1: these guys are detecting ship, they're armed thugs. Yeah, I

468
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:28,439
Speaker 1: solve the mystery of why I beat that man to

469
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 1: death with a blackjack. It's because it was Paul. I

470
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:36,120
Speaker 1: remember when I learned that, like, oh, private detectives are

471
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:39,560
Speaker 1: just people that you hire to uh monitor other people.

472
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:42,679
Speaker 1: They're just kind of like paid stalkers. And I was like, oh,

473
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 1: that's it's a very different picture. You know, that's a

474
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:48,679
Speaker 1: broad generalization. But still and yeah, and here they're just paid.

475
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:52,040
Speaker 1: They just are are men with guns who do whatever

476
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:54,600
Speaker 1: the people hiring the mask and in this case it's

477
00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:57,640
Speaker 1: throw people out of their homes. So Albert Felts gets

478
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:01,880
Speaker 1: thirteen detectives and when he gets his reinforcements, um so yeah.

479
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:03,640
Speaker 1: He was worried about the danger of doing this work

480
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:05,720
Speaker 1: without machine gun nests to back him up, but he

481
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:07,479
Speaker 1: and his men hopped into three cars and drove out

482
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 1: to the edge of town to start evicting the ship

483
00:25:09,119 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 1: out of some miners. Now the Baldwin feltsmen were all

484
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:13,760
Speaker 1: heavily armed, and the miners in the area could do

485
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 1: nothing but stand by and watch as they tossed furniture

486
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:18,640
Speaker 1: and valuables out onto the street. This kind of work

487
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:20,920
Speaker 1: was routine for the Baldwin feltsman and they intended to

488
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:22,679
Speaker 1: destroy the lives of a number of families and then

489
00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:24,200
Speaker 1: hop on the train to get back to their homes

490
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 1: at the end of the day. Now, the Baldwin Felts

491
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:29,879
Speaker 1: detectives were interrupted in their task by Sid Hatfield, the

492
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 1: police chief and Mayor Testament. Again, Albert tried bribery, this

493
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 1: time offering Sid two or three hundred dollars a month

494
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 1: for his allegiance. Hatfield turned him down and demanded to

495
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:42,879
Speaker 1: know what authority Felts had to evict people. Felts replied

496
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 1: that he'd gotten a court order from the capital in Charleston,

497
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,159
Speaker 1: but he didn't have it on him. So Hatfield and

498
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:50,280
Speaker 1: Testament are like, that's unacceptable. You don't even have the

499
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: fucking court order. You have no we have no way

500
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:53,959
Speaker 1: to know that you you have a right to evict

501
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 1: these people, uh, and Felt just shrugged and said, basically, like,

502
00:25:57,520 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 1: I have thirteen men with guns. What are the two

503
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: of you going to do about this? So the mayor

504
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:04,640
Speaker 1: and the police chief go back downtown and they attempt

505
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:06,359
Speaker 1: to like get on the telegraph or whatever, and they

506
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: call up warrants from the local court to try and

507
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 1: arrest the Baldwin feltsman for unlawfully processing evictions. But it

508
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:14,120
Speaker 1: doesn't really work out. Things aren't very fast back then,

509
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 1: and while they do this, an armed posse of locals,

510
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:20,159
Speaker 1: mostly miners, start to congregate in downtown Matajuan, which is

511
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 1: why Albert felt what had some machine gun nests there. Um.

512
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 1: So by the time the Baldwin feltsmen finished their work

513
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:28,399
Speaker 1: and return to the hotel they'd been staying at, there

514
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 1: were an awful lot of angry men with guns in

515
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:33,440
Speaker 1: the middle of Mattawan ready to do violence. So the

516
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:35,919
Speaker 1: Baldwin Felds men get back and they're packing up to

517
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:38,840
Speaker 1: get to the train station, and there's another confrontation between

518
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:42,119
Speaker 1: Mayor Testament, sid Hatfield and the detectives. The two groups

519
00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:45,280
Speaker 1: threatened to arrest each other, and then, as historian Robert

520
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: Shogun writes, quote, there would be nearly as many versions

521
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 1: of what happened next as there were witnesses to the scene.

522
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: By some accounts, Albert felt shot the Mayor, then World

523
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:56,639
Speaker 1: and fired into the hardware store at sid Hatfield. Others

524
00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 1: said the first shots came from the store itself and

525
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 1: from Hatfield's guns, striking both Felts and Testament. At any rate,

526
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 1: everyone agreed that the first men to fall were Cable

527
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,719
Speaker 1: Testament and Albert Felts. Then all hell broke loose. Immediately,

528
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 1: Hugh Combs's deputies and some of the other miners had

529
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: been looking on raked the street with gunfire. Albert Felts,

530
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 1: his brother, Lee, and Cunningham drew their pistols and returned fire,

531
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 1: but they were badly outgunned. Most of their comrades, whose

532
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 1: guns were packed away, scrambled for cover behind trees and fences.

533
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,119
Speaker 1: But Combs's men were relentless. One after the other, the

534
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 1: Baldwin Felts agents fell, so at the end of the

535
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 1: blood letting, three Mottawan locals, including Mayor Testament, were dead,

536
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: along with seven Baldwin Felts detectives, including both Felts brothers,

537
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,120
Speaker 1: and most of the killing on this day was done

538
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:40,439
Speaker 1: by Sid Hatfield. Now, it was rare for cops to

539
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 1: wind up on the side of union strikers, and this,

540
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:44,879
Speaker 1: plus Sid's well earned reputation is kind of a larger

541
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 1: than life gun slinger made him an instant hero of

542
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 1: union men nationwide. Like they fucking love Sid Hatfield because

543
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: he shoots a bunch of detectives. Yeah yeah, he like,

544
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 1: I mean those were and he got the two brothers.

545
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:01,120
Speaker 1: It's like he took out the ball almost, although yeah,

546
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's more bosses. There's more bosses. He took

547
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 1: out a boss. And like every post, every like photo

548
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:09,160
Speaker 1: you see of Sid Hatfield from this period of time,

549
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 1: he's pointing both of his guns directly at the cameraman,

550
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 1: like smiling and posing like he's They weren't great on

551
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: gun safety back then. A lot of pointing guns at

552
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:22,680
Speaker 1: people to get good photos. Yeah, So the United Mine

553
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 1: Workers Union puts together a propaganda film called Smiling Sid,

554
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: which they played in camps to help inspire in organized miners.

555
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 1: Sid Hatfield becomes the focus of regular newspaper stories and

556
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 1: photographs inevitably capture him pointing again both of his guns

557
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 1: at the camera. There was a trial for Sid Hatfield,

558
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 1: of course, but the Mingo County jury decided that Smiling

559
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: Sid had done nothing wrong. It also happened that several

560
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: witnesses hostile to Hatfield died mysteriously right before the trial. Obviously,

561
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 1: the Baldwin Felts Detective Agency and the surviving Felts brother

562
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 1: we're not about to take this lying down. They attempted

563
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 1: to frame Hatfield and one of his deputies for the

564
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 1: destruction of coal company property at a nearby county where

565
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: the legal situation was friendlier. So Hatfield and his deputy

566
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 1: had to travel to McDowell County, West Virginia to stand trial. Now,

567
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: there was no real evidence against them, but the goal

568
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: was never to convict them. In August of nine, Sid

569
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: and his deputy arrived in town to go to their trial,

570
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: and as they stepped up to the courthouse doors, a

571
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 1: group of Baldwin Felt Mine guards, including that labor spy

572
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: I was talking about earlier. Lively, drove up and just

573
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 1: pumped them full of gunfire and kill both men. Now,

574
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 1: the men who murdered, said Hatfield, were tried in turn,

575
00:29:28,280 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: but McDow County Justice proved his unwilling to convict them,

576
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 1: as Mingo County Justice was to convict their victims. So

577
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: this happens. Um. Yeah, so that's cool and good. Do

578
00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: you know what else is cool and good? You know

579
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 1: what won't murder? The only good cop in this story,

580
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 1: the products and services that support this podcast. None of

581
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 1: them killed, said Hatfield. That is a hard line we

582
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 1: draw with our sponsors. I ask every one of them,

583
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: did you murder, said Hatfield, and they all say no,

584
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 1: except for the one that said yes, the Koch brothers,

585
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: And I apologize for that getting through. Um here's the ads.

586
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 1: We're back. Oh my Christ, sweet bleeding Jesus, we are back.

587
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 1: What a good time. So yeah, that's the hat Field stuff.

588
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,719
Speaker 1: It's a bummer. Um. And while all this is happening,

589
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: So this like occurs over the course of about a year,

590
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:34,360
Speaker 1: you know, you've got the Mattawan massacre as it's known

591
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 1: um and then you've got Sid Hatfield's assassination. You know,

592
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:39,720
Speaker 1: there's two a little less than a year apart, but

593
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 1: this happens like one. And while all this drama is progressing,

594
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 1: and like there's a bunch of court cases and ship

595
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 1: and hat Fields, you know, becoming a public figure. While

596
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: all this is going down, the overall situation in Mingo

597
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: County had continued to degenerate. Striking miners had formed into

598
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 1: a series of heavily armed camps, and groups of them

599
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: started regularly sallying out to carry out hyper attacks and

600
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 1: acts of sabotage on mine company infrastructure, and also to

601
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 1: assassinate mine guards. Now, West Virginia's governor at this time

602
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: was fundamentally a coward, and his first instinct was to

603
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 1: beg President Harding to send in federal troops to help

604
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 1: calm the violence. Harding replied that he wouldn't send in

605
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: federal troops until he was convinced the governor had actually

606
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: taken some sort of action. So the governor enacted West

607
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,960
Speaker 1: Virginia's Public Safety Law, which enabled him to seize authority

608
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:28,240
Speaker 1: for Mingo County law enforcement from the local police, who

609
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 1: sided with the miners and handed over to the head

610
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: of the state police, a guy named Bracas who was

611
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 1: in the pay of the mine owners and was a

612
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 1: real piece of ship. So that's good. Yeah, I guess

613
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 1: that must have happened in history before. But that seems

614
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: to be drastic to be all like the police, they're

615
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: not the police. Yeah, the police aren't policing the way

616
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:51,720
Speaker 1: we want him to police. They're not the police anymore.

617
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 1: This other guy that we pay is now the police. Yeah. Yeah.

618
00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 1: It is important to note that there is there is

619
00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 1: a history in in the labor movement of East sighting

620
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 1: with workers and being very useful in that, but also

621
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 1: there's a history of the state just being like when

622
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 1: they do that, you're not the police anymore. Yeah. So

623
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 1: Bracus gets to create new police because the police that

624
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 1: were there didn't hate minors enough, and he immediately uses

625
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: his powers to create a law and order community made

626
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 1: up of two volunteers. And these were mostly wealthier men

627
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 1: from Mingo County, business owners and landed gentry who would

628
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:29,680
Speaker 1: just be given rifles by the state and the legal

629
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 1: authority to violently suppress their poor working class foes. So

630
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 1: that's cool, yeah, but maynight, Yeah, it's awesome and good

631
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 1: and cool. I I also love it. And what's even

632
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: cooler is that today, if this happened, no one would

633
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 1: even need to give them rifles because they already have them,

634
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 1: and a lot of the people that would be shooting

635
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 1: at don't, which is part of a anyway. On May nine,

636
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 1: the governor declared a state of martial law in West Virginia.

637
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: He put Major Thomas B. Davis of the of the

638
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 1: of the of the state, you know, National Guard or

639
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 1: whatever the militia in charge of finally suppressing the strikers.

640
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 1: And Major Davis was a real piece of ship. So

641
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: Davis had joined the U. S Military to fight in

642
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 1: the Spanish American War, which is a bad war to

643
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: have joined to fight in, um, but he also failed

644
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: to see any action in it. Um. So, even though

645
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 1: he never got any combat, he decided he really liked

646
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:25,480
Speaker 1: military life, and when his regiment was disbanded, he joined

647
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 1: the West Virginia National Guard to stay in uniform. UH

648
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:31,400
Speaker 1: Davis had commanded a unit during the Paint Creek Strike

649
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 1: of nineteen twelve, and the whole experience had revealed and

650
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: Robert Shogun's words a nonchalance towards civil liberties on the

651
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 1: part of Davis, which is not a thing you want

652
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: to be nonchalant about. Um, be chalant about civil liberties?

653
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: Is my ship out of those? Yeah, you want to

654
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: chalant the hell out of him? Yeah, don't non the anyway.

655
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 1: Here's Robert Shogen quote. This is talking about what he

656
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 1: had done in uh uh, the nineteen twelve strike that

657
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 1: we talked about last episode. It also talks about some

658
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 1: shitty things that the governor, who was otherwise seemed pretty

659
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 1: cool um Dr Hatfield got up to. So it's a

660
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:13,479
Speaker 1: useful paragraph. Quote. The military commission that had held sway

661
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 1: over defendants charged with violating Governor Glasscox martial law decrees

662
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:20,240
Speaker 1: selected him as its Provost Marshal, him being Davis, despite

663
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:22,000
Speaker 1: the fact that the civil courts in the martial law

664
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:24,399
Speaker 1: district were open. The military Commission, sitting in the town

665
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:28,320
Speaker 1: of Pratt and Kenawa County, ruled on offenses ranging from larceny, adultery,

666
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 1: and disorderly conduct to disobeying sentries and perjury. A nearby

667
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,680
Speaker 1: freight terminal served as a bullpen to hold prisoners, among

668
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 1: whom was Mother Jones. On occasion, the commission tried as

669
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:40,359
Speaker 1: many as thirty prisoners at a time. Dispensing with such

670
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:43,880
Speaker 1: formalities his indictments or juries, Davis saw to it that

671
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 1: those convicted were hustled off not to the county jail

672
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: but to the Moundsville State Prison. With Davis's active assistance,

673
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 1: the Commission rode rough shot over civil courts. When the

674
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:54,880
Speaker 1: County Circuit Court issued an order forbidding enforcement of the

675
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:58,360
Speaker 1: commissions sentences, Major Davis, acting on orders from Governor Hatfield,

676
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:01,400
Speaker 1: who had by now succeeded Glasscock, blocked the county sheriff

677
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:03,799
Speaker 1: from serving the writ on the National Guard officer who

678
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 1: headed the Commission. In May of nineteen thirteen, after a

679
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:10,280
Speaker 1: pro labor newspaper, the Socialist and Labor Star editorially denounced

680
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:13,239
Speaker 1: the coal barons and attacked Governor Hatfield for arresting a

681
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:16,319
Speaker 1: union lawyer and suppressing the Labor Argus sister paper to

682
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:19,000
Speaker 1: the Star, Davis led a raid on the Stars offices,

683
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 1: bearing warrants from Hatfield himself. Davis and his posse of

684
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:24,760
Speaker 1: guardsmen and sheriff's deputies forced their way into the paper's

685
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 1: offices in Huntington's overpower to guard and wreaked havoc destroying

686
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,040
Speaker 1: type and printing equipment. From there, Davis and his commandos

687
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 1: invaded the editor's home, season correspondents and books and rummaging

688
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 1: through his files and searched for the paper subscription list.

689
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 1: The editor and assistant editor were imprisoned for two weeks.

690
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 1: So that's cool. So that's this guy's backstory. That's gonna

691
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 1: be like his that very precedented in history. I mean,

692
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:51,320
Speaker 1: I'm sure you take out the press, but yeah, that

693
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: just seems like such a I mean, you know, obviously

694
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:56,440
Speaker 1: it's like you cut them off at their communication. But

695
00:35:56,480 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 1: at the same time, it seems like such bystanders. You know.

696
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:04,360
Speaker 1: Yet historically, uh, it's pretty dangerous to run a socialist

697
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 1: newspaper in the United States of America. A lot of

698
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 1: them got murdered, a lot of them got deported, a

699
00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:11,440
Speaker 1: lot of them got cracked down on. There's a long,

700
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: beautiful history of that. It's one of our proudest traditions

701
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 1: in the United States. Um. Yeah, it's cool and good.

702
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 1: So um yeah, So this is that's the backstory of

703
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:26,239
Speaker 1: this guy Major Davis, who winds up in charge of

704
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: the state of West Virginia's efforts to suppress the Strikers.

705
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:33,359
Speaker 1: And end the violence UM, which they do by using

706
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 1: more violence. So Davis's first task in charge was to

707
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:39,719
Speaker 1: vet the volunteers for the county's new vigilance committees. And

708
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:42,240
Speaker 1: these are like the rich guys who volunteered to shoot

709
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:46,800
Speaker 1: at poor people UM. And Davis ensured that no union men, farmers,

710
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 1: or black men were allowed on the commission or given firearms.

711
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:53,359
Speaker 1: Citing his authority under martial law, Major Davis banned all

712
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: union gatherings and only union gatherings. He also banned the

713
00:36:57,040 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 1: distribution of pro union newspapers. He rescinded all gun permits

714
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: for union men as well, effectively stripping them of their

715
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:08,560
Speaker 1: constitutional right to bear arms. So that's good. So Davis's

716
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:11,719
Speaker 1: first actions targeted union organizers, arresting them for trying to

717
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 1: hold gatherings and having several of them brutally beaten by

718
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 1: his own men. He also put it in order for

719
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:19,359
Speaker 1: a creative new Thompson submachine guns, which he hoped would

720
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:22,280
Speaker 1: aid the Mingo police and clearing out strikers and their families.

721
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:25,360
Speaker 1: The miners, however, did not wait for this to happen.

722
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 1: On a group of snipers from one of the striking

723
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:32,840
Speaker 1: workers camps opened fire on camp guards. State police and

724
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:35,880
Speaker 1: National guardsmen from nearby Kentucky came in to provide backup,

725
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:38,319
Speaker 1: and two of them were killed by sniper fire. The

726
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: snipers were eventually driven off, several was arrested and one

727
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 1: was killed, and the whole encounter convinced the mine bosses

728
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:46,800
Speaker 1: that it was necessary to break up these striking camps,

729
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:51,360
Speaker 1: which had basically evolved into armed militia compounds. Now. Major

730
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 1: Davis's first plan for how to handle this situation was

731
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:57,840
Speaker 1: to create concentration camps on US soil. He wanted to

732
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 1: send soldiers into the strike camps and four out most

733
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: of the committed union men and then reorganize the camps,

734
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 1: which would then be filled with women and children and

735
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:09,680
Speaker 1: put them under semi permanent military guard. So yeah, he

736
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:11,799
Speaker 1: just was like, what have we just made some concentration

737
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:15,240
Speaker 1: camps out of this? That seems like a call. There's

738
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:18,840
Speaker 1: only the same ideas like that. Guys don't have new ideas.

739
00:38:19,520 --> 00:38:23,239
Speaker 1: It's all the one idea really, which is, yeah, use

740
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:26,879
Speaker 1: weapons that you have and they don't, to lock them

741
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 1: into prisons of one sort or another and make them

742
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:31,719
Speaker 1: do what you want or just die if that's what

743
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:34,919
Speaker 1: you're wanting to do. Yeah, that is the only plan. Ever,

744
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 1: like when you get right down to it, which is

745
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:41,719
Speaker 1: cool and good, does not echo in history or into

746
00:38:41,719 --> 00:38:45,920
Speaker 1: the modern day and anyway. So as a prelude to this, uh,

747
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:50,320
Speaker 1: this concentration camp policy, Major Davis began sending police and

748
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:53,799
Speaker 1: soldiers on a series of raids against camps in Lick Creek. Now,

749
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:55,840
Speaker 1: there were a series of gun fights involving hundreds of

750
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:58,800
Speaker 1: men sniping at each other and like milelong skirmish lines,

751
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 1: and Davis ordering them to our machine guns into the

752
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:03,719
Speaker 1: campus press strikers. A bunch of different gunfights like this,

753
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,560
Speaker 1: multiple battles occur. So there's all these raids which kill

754
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: a number of people, and you know, happen over the

755
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,400
Speaker 1: course of days and weeks um and you know, the

756
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 1: death toll of all these raids, combined with the anger

757
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:17,959
Speaker 1: over the assassination of sid Hatfield, which happens in early

758
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:21,720
Speaker 1: August of nine, all of this eventually pushes the striking

759
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:27,879
Speaker 1: miners into massive retaliation. On October three, thousand of them

760
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 1: gathered with all of the guns that they could carry. Now,

761
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 1: since Davis's men had been rating their strongholds, they decided

762
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 1: to target, a stronghold of the mine bosses Logan County.

763
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:38,960
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna read a quote now from a writ

764
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,720
Speaker 1: up by a professor named Hoit Wheeler, a labor professor,

765
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 1: talking about what was happening in Logan County at the time. Quote.

766
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 1: Logan County in nineteen twenty one has been described as

767
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:51,880
Speaker 1: a leer in the face of liberty, a feudal barony

768
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 1: defended by soldiers of fortune in the pay of mine owners.

769
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 1: The ruler of this feudal barony was the Sheriff of

770
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:00,880
Speaker 1: Logan County, Don Chaffin. It is instead of Chafing that

771
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:03,440
Speaker 1: in his heyday, when clothed with official power, he was

772
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 1: a hard drinking, swaggering, bragging, bullying gunman who ruled his

773
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 1: kingdom of Logan with a mailed fist. In Logan County,

774
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 1: it was the practice for coal companies to pay the

775
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:16,319
Speaker 1: salaries of deputy sheriffs. These deputies were used systematically by

776
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:19,400
Speaker 1: Chaffin to prevent union organizers from operating in Logan County.

777
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 1: Organizers were beaten and jailed at will. So this army

778
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 1: of miners from their camps organizes at Lynz Creek, which

779
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 1: is about sixty five miles from the Logan County line,

780
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: and they start marching. Two UMW officers who are terrified

781
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:35,919
Speaker 1: of the bloodshed that might ensue if these guys reach

782
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 1: Logan County, they actually intercept the miners and they begged

783
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 1: them to call off the march. There basically, we can

784
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:42,720
Speaker 1: negotiate this, we can work things out with the companies.

785
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 1: There's no need for this attorney into a massive blood bath.

786
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: Um and the miners agree, and the mining this army

787
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 1: of miners starts to back away, and while they're backing away,

788
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:55,320
Speaker 1: Sheriff Chaffin of Logan County decides to launch an attack

789
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: while they're retreating, and he kills two men. After a

790
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 1: massive battle, um now pisces off the striking miners, and

791
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 1: suddenly they stop retreating and backing away, and in fact,

792
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:08,719
Speaker 1: three thousand more men joined them, and like swell the

793
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:13,400
Speaker 1: force to six thousand, and this army of six thousand

794
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:16,760
Speaker 1: men starts advancing on Blair Mountain, a ridgeline that separates

795
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:19,000
Speaker 1: the Union chunk of Logan County, which is pretty tiny

796
00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 1: from the larger non Union chunk, and by the time

797
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:24,800
Speaker 1: they actually reach Logan County there's more than ten thousand

798
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:28,720
Speaker 1: miners in this army. Now, the soldiers in this massive

799
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:32,360
Speaker 1: Union army are dressed as the nightmares of every American capitalist.

800
00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: They wore red bandanas, and they tied red flags to

801
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 1: the barrels of their guns. They had an organized medical

802
00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 1: corps to deal with casualties, and at least one machine gun.

803
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: Their commander, their general, was a Union officer with the

804
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 1: pretty awesome name of Bill Blizzard. Pretty fucking sick. Yeah yeah.

805
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:55,799
Speaker 1: One witness who was present described the scene of the

806
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: army this way. One big redheaded fellow hopped off the

807
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 1: tray a lot of them to trains to get up

808
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:02,840
Speaker 1: to the front, and got up on the platform and

809
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: waived his high powered rifle and said, the Coal River

810
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:08,760
Speaker 1: hell cats have arrived. Now watch us work. He called

811
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:11,360
Speaker 1: for detailed number seventy four. He got up on some

812
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 1: high ground and kept hollering for details seventy four, and

813
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 1: there were about twenty men all armed. They had on

814
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:18,799
Speaker 1: the customary overalls and belt cartridges and a couple of

815
00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:21,719
Speaker 1: big forty four stuck in their belt and high powered rifles.

816
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 1: He called those men in and he called the roll

817
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 1: and then started off up Coal River, and word was

818
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 1: being passed around through the crowd. So on the opposite

819
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 1: side of Blair Mountain, Sheriff Chaffin had about a thousand

820
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:34,840
Speaker 1: men at his command, amount about thousands like police and

821
00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 1: stuff wrong with another two thousand volunteers, mostly these vigilance countymen. UM.

822
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 1: So he's got about three thousand fighters in total. But

823
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:46,280
Speaker 1: he also has several commercial pilots and he has three planes.

824
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 1: So that's that's about to matter in a second. Now,

825
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:53,400
Speaker 1: the assault of the miners begins on August thirty one,

826
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:56,799
Speaker 1: and it is ugly from the jump. The miners had

827
00:42:56,800 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 1: the advantage of numbers, but they were assaulting an entrenched enemy.

828
00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:02,920
Speaker 1: They're trying to attack the top of this mountain. Um,

829
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 1: So they're attacking an entrenched enemy with the high ground

830
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 1: and access to a number of gatling guns and other

831
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:11,680
Speaker 1: automatic weapons. Battle was joined at a number of sections

832
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 1: across the line, and the fighting was vicious. Sheriff Chafin

833
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 1: eventually decided to send out his planes. Now, initially, the

834
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:20,759
Speaker 1: thing that he had like been legally authorized to do

835
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:22,799
Speaker 1: was to load them up with copies of a proclamation

836
00:43:22,880 --> 00:43:27,839
Speaker 1: from President Harding basically saying like stop stop all this um.

837
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:30,800
Speaker 1: But instead of loading them up with proclamations. On Thursday,

838
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 1: September one, he ordered them loaded with pipe bombs and

839
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 1: tear gas bombs and just starts dropping them on crowds

840
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 1: of miners. Now, this doesn't work very well. The Sheriff's

841
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:45,400
Speaker 1: air SATs air force was markedly ineffective, but it is

842
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 1: part of what makes the Battle of Blair Mountains so historic.

843
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: This was not just a strike or a riot. This

844
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:52,840
Speaker 1: was a full fledged military action, a war on American

845
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 1: soil against American citizens, um, which included air power and

846
00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:00,879
Speaker 1: machine guns. It's a wild but people don't here learn

847
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:04,920
Speaker 1: about this ship. Yeah, It's like people talk about like

848
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:07,239
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma bombing and stuff, and this seems like the

849
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:12,360
Speaker 1: same kind of level of escalation. Yeah, except an I

850
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm I'm bann at history. You're good at history. Yeah,

851
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:18,719
Speaker 1: I mean, like the Oklahoma City bombing people know about

852
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:21,400
Speaker 1: because it was just like one asshole with no good grievance,

853
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:23,520
Speaker 1: but like on the part of a bunch of right

854
00:44:23,560 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 1: wing nutfox um murdering people. Um. But these guys were

855
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:30,800
Speaker 1: had a real grievance, and it was a grievance that

856
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 1: kind of cuts to the heart of inequalities in the

857
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 1: center of American society. So we never talked about the

858
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 1: time that they got bombed and tear gassed and shot

859
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 1: at with machine guns. Yeah, we just would you would

860
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:43,880
Speaker 1: you just leave that out of the history books. Um? No,

861
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 1: The eight hour workday was entirely gained by polite people

862
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:51,760
Speaker 1: with signs protesting. That's why. That's why we have a weekend,

863
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:55,360
Speaker 1: not the men who charged machine gun nests and sniped

864
00:44:55,360 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: it corporate guards. Yeah, it's cool, Like, this is cool history.

865
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 1: This is what the industry should be. It's like, this

866
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:08,279
Speaker 1: is you You've got to imagine that if we told

867
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:10,920
Speaker 1: the stories like this, people would be would be a

868
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:15,320
Speaker 1: lot more interested in history, our history. Yeah, the reason

869
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 1: we have these things like the weekend and the eight

870
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:19,719
Speaker 1: hour work day is that and this is not just

871
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 1: you know what happened in West Virginia. All over the country,

872
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:23,360
Speaker 1: there were a number of actions like this. This is

873
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:25,239
Speaker 1: kind of like the biggest and most you know too,

874
00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:28,360
Speaker 1: But like all of these things that we consider just

875
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:30,320
Speaker 1: a part of life, like the fact that you're supposed

876
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 1: to get a weekend, all of these things were bought

877
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 1: in blood by men who were willing to kill for

878
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:38,400
Speaker 1: these rights by men who are willing to die for

879
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:41,839
Speaker 1: these things, and we don't talk about that even though

880
00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 1: it's cool and interesting because it might give people ideas. Yeah,

881
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:50,359
Speaker 1: I mean, they sacrificed a lot, but I also like

882
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 1: retweeted a petition, so you know that is the same thing. Yeah, yes,

883
00:45:56,280 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: they were. These men were retweeting with their rifles. Yeah,

884
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 1: every every way, every one of the hundred thousand bullets

885
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:08,120
Speaker 1: fired in that one battle was a tweet. It's all

886
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: about the ratio, then, is now. Yeah. Yeah, they ratioed

887
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:18,240
Speaker 1: the mine bosses by strafing them with thirty six Yeah,

888
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: but um, it's for an outbreak. You know what also

889
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 1: supports the strafing of mine guards with high caliber hunting rifles.

890
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:41,520
Speaker 1: The products and services that support this podcast. We're back,

891
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:45,040
Speaker 1: We're back, and where we just left off, the sheriff

892
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 1: of Logan County had ordered chemical weapons and bombs deployed

893
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:55,759
Speaker 1: by air against attacking workers. Um, so that's pretty cool. Um. Now,

894
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 1: over the course of days, uh, this battle escalates and

895
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:03,760
Speaker 1: fighting continues again for days, and federal troops are finally

896
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:06,759
Speaker 1: sent in, which you know, it takes a while to

897
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:08,719
Speaker 1: get there, and the union men know that federal troops

898
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 1: are coming. They also know that like they can't fight

899
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:14,560
Speaker 1: federal troops, right, you know, the army has cannons and

900
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:19,160
Speaker 1: better bombers and a whole lot of machine guns. Um.

901
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:21,640
Speaker 1: So they realized they only have like one last ditch

902
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:24,240
Speaker 1: chance to like win this fight before the army arrives,

903
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:27,320
Speaker 1: and they launched a desperate assault across the entire Blair

904
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 1: Mountain line. And I'm gonna quote again from the Battle

905
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:33,440
Speaker 1: for Blair Mountain by Robert Shogen about this last assault quote.

906
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:36,800
Speaker 1: In preparation for their attack, the insurgents dispatched a patrol

907
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,560
Speaker 1: to destroy a railroad bridge on the Guyan Dot line

908
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 1: of the Norfolk and Western, hoping to keep reinforcements from

909
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:44,760
Speaker 1: reaching the defender's positions. The bridge was set on fire,

910
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: but a century who extinguished the blaze discovered a charge

911
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:49,319
Speaker 1: of dynamite and saved it from being blown up. But

912
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:51,440
Speaker 1: the miners went ahead with their planned assault anyway. That

913
00:47:51,520 --> 00:47:53,840
Speaker 1: same morning, the attack began with a feint at the

914
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:56,280
Speaker 1: center of the defense lines at Blair Mountain. The miners

915
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:58,720
Speaker 1: opened up on an outpost manned by the Bluefield Boys,

916
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: a volunteer contingent from the town with machine gun and

917
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:03,920
Speaker 1: rifle fire. Having gained the attention of the defenders, the

918
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:06,080
Speaker 1: miners sent their main force against the left and right

919
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:09,359
Speaker 1: flanks of the defenders. Attack was pushed desperately, reported one

920
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:11,759
Speaker 1: local journalist from his vantage point in a machine gun

921
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:14,239
Speaker 1: nest on the defense ramparts. The enemies seemed to have

922
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 1: no sense of fear whatever and advanced over the crest

923
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 1: of the hill and the face of machine gun and

924
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: rifle fire. But in reality that the defenders gave as

925
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 1: good as they got. We couldn't fire a shot, but

926
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 1: what they would rake our line from top to bottom,

927
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:27,720
Speaker 1: one of the miners told reporters to this beleaguered insurgent.

928
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:29,520
Speaker 1: The offenders seemed to be able to volley back a

929
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 1: hundred rounds for every shot fired at them, and when

930
00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:34,399
Speaker 1: it came to devious tactics, the defenders were at least

931
00:48:34,400 --> 00:48:36,840
Speaker 1: a match for their attackers. At one point, the defenders

932
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:39,400
Speaker 1: in the first line of trenches abandoned their posts, seemingly

933
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:41,840
Speaker 1: driven off by the force of the attack. The advancing

934
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 1: miners promptly occupied the trench, exulting in the ground they

935
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:46,840
Speaker 1: had gained, but they had little time to celebrate. A

936
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 1: hidden machine gun nest, located barely fifty yards away, raked

937
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 1: the position and drove them back. Another machine gun nest,

938
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 1: protected by a rock cliff and barricades of timber and stones,

939
00:48:55,840 --> 00:48:58,360
Speaker 1: kept up a steady fire. Fortunately for the miners that

940
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 1: could only fire in one direction, but it was enough

941
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:05,319
Speaker 1: to repel several assaults, so the attack fails. In the end,

942
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 1: the miners cannot break the line at Blair Mountain and

943
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:12,279
Speaker 1: can't take the mountain, and federal troops arrive on September three,

944
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:14,280
Speaker 1: and the miners were forced to retreat to their lines

945
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:17,279
Speaker 1: and eventually to disband. In the end, fifty to a

946
00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:19,759
Speaker 1: hundred miners were killed, along with ten to thirty of

947
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 1: Sheriff Chaffin's men. Almost a thousand miners were arrested, but

948
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:26,239
Speaker 1: the vast majority of the army dispersed. Many miners hid

949
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 1: their weapons and the hills and valleys around Blair Mountain

950
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 1: and caches of arms are actually still discovered there today.

951
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:36,360
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool, yeah yeah, go arms hunting in Blair

952
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:38,600
Speaker 1: County and send me what you find. Just mail it,

953
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:43,760
Speaker 1: mail it. The US Post Office loves sending century old

954
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:48,279
Speaker 1: munitions and dynamite. Just go ahead, and it's fine, get

955
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 1: They'll take what they can get. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

956
00:49:51,840 --> 00:49:53,879
Speaker 1: There were trials for treason and murder in the wake

957
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:56,480
Speaker 1: of all this. Bill Blizzard was acquitted, but some of

958
00:49:56,480 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 1: the miners were convicted for a variety of crimes. The

959
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:02,360
Speaker 1: UMW paid for everyone legal defense, which nearly bankrupted the union,

960
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 1: and the immediate wake of the battle was a huge

961
00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:08,400
Speaker 1: victory for the forces of capitalism. This time, the bosses

962
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:12,760
Speaker 1: had won, but the United Mine Workers of America continue

963
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 1: to organize, and the Senate Investigating Committee looked into the

964
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:17,759
Speaker 1: whole mess, which helped bring national attention to the plight

965
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 1: of miners in West Virginia and elsewhere. The bosses had

966
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:22,400
Speaker 1: won on the battlefield, but they did not win in

967
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:25,399
Speaker 1: the long battle for public opinion. By nineteen thirty five,

968
00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:28,319
Speaker 1: the new Deal brought new protections for workers and an

969
00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 1: end too many of the abuses that had long plagued

970
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:33,920
Speaker 1: the coal industry. The u m W succeeded finally in

971
00:50:34,040 --> 00:50:37,759
Speaker 1: organizing the vast majority of miners in West Virginia. So

972
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:42,239
Speaker 1: that's good. Yeah. The ESU system, which we talked about

973
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:44,239
Speaker 1: in our first episode, whereby women were forced to pay

974
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 1: for basic necessities by rape, Uh, is believed to have

975
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:49,800
Speaker 1: come to an end around nineteen thirty four as a

976
00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:53,600
Speaker 1: consequence of the Union finally organizing West Virginia. While many

977
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:56,360
Speaker 1: aspects of this violent struggle have been studied and covered

978
00:50:56,360 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 1: in detail by historians like Robert Shogun, THEESU system was

979
00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:02,960
Speaker 1: allowed to fade from memory. Historian Michael Klein writes that

980
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 1: the use of female flesh to extend credit to feed

981
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: the family was never mentioned by our own regional historians.

982
00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:11,400
Speaker 1: Now this has led many modern historians to doubt that

983
00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:13,960
Speaker 1: such a system ever existed. The men who line up

984
00:51:14,000 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 1: on this side, like West Virginia University professor Paul Rakes,

985
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:20,160
Speaker 1: will point to the aggression and powerful self defense instincts

986
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:22,440
Speaker 1: shown by the miners at Blair Mountain. Men who were

987
00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:24,719
Speaker 1: willing to charge machine gun nests to fight for their

988
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:28,480
Speaker 1: rights surely would not have taken a system of bureaucratized

989
00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:32,280
Speaker 1: rape of their wives and sisters lying down. Labor historian

990
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:35,160
Speaker 1: Wes Harris has a convincing argument though against this line

991
00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:38,480
Speaker 1: of reasoning quote, my best guess is they didn't talk

992
00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:40,239
Speaker 1: about it because if they had talked about it, they

993
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:42,879
Speaker 1: would have risked their husbands getting really irritated and going

994
00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:45,520
Speaker 1: out and trying to get revenge. Your husband gets killed,

995
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 1: you're a widow, you're on the street, you get kicked

996
00:51:47,560 --> 00:51:50,279
Speaker 1: out of the company house, which is a point like

997
00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:53,160
Speaker 1: a lot of miners died because they got angry and

998
00:51:53,200 --> 00:51:54,759
Speaker 1: took up arms against the mine, and a lot of

999
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:56,759
Speaker 1: these women were just like, if I let them know

1000
00:51:56,840 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 1: what I'm doing to keep the family fed, they'll go

1001
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:01,480
Speaker 1: get themselves. Was killed, and then we'll be in an

1002
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:04,879
Speaker 1: even worse spot. Yeah, I mean, there's it seems like

1003
00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:08,920
Speaker 1: there's no shortage of reasons why you might not, you know,

1004
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:12,160
Speaker 1: create a big thing of that that almost are you know,

1005
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:15,360
Speaker 1: at least in modern perspectives, seemed very self evident and

1006
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:17,520
Speaker 1: don't even need to be discussed. But its like it

1007
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:20,360
Speaker 1: was a big deal to be able to feel like, no, actually,

1008
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 1: there's this logic to it. It's so strange. Yeah, Now

1009
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:26,920
Speaker 1: it's further evidence for the idea that the East House

1010
00:52:26,960 --> 00:52:30,480
Speaker 1: system was real. Uh. Labor historian West Harris points to

1011
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:33,560
Speaker 1: the extremely well documented history of child labor in the

1012
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:36,279
Speaker 1: minds of West Virginia. Now, this was illegal even at

1013
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:37,880
Speaker 1: the time that we're talking about, but it was not

1014
00:52:37,960 --> 00:52:39,920
Speaker 1: uncommon for ten year olds to be sent down to

1015
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:42,920
Speaker 1: work um and authorities were almost never called. As a

1016
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:44,960
Speaker 1: result of this, if a child were to complain to

1017
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:47,439
Speaker 1: a social worker, his family would lose their company house,

1018
00:52:47,440 --> 00:52:50,080
Speaker 1: to be forced out onto the street. This is a

1019
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:53,000
Speaker 1: little bit like how today more than a fifth of

1020
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:56,880
Speaker 1: U S workers are regularly forced into uncompensated over time.

1021
00:52:57,320 --> 00:52:59,000
Speaker 1: You might also compare it to the fact that in

1022
00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen, one study found that workers in tin

1023
00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:04,960
Speaker 1: U S States had lost a combine eight billion dollars

1024
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:09,120
Speaker 1: per year to wage theft from their employees. Now that's

1025
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 1: just ten states eight billion dollars in wage theft per year. Now,

1026
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 1: one of the things that's interesting to me is that

1027
00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:20,200
Speaker 1: the total value of all property theft nationwide on an

1028
00:53:20,200 --> 00:53:24,080
Speaker 1: annual basis is about sixteen billion dollars. So if you're

1029
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:26,640
Speaker 1: looking at these numbers, you might come to the conclusion

1030
00:53:27,120 --> 00:53:31,239
Speaker 1: that wage theft is almost certainly a larger problem than

1031
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:34,399
Speaker 1: all other theft combined in the United States, but it's

1032
00:53:34,480 --> 00:53:39,200
Speaker 1: virtually never prosecuted. That's me, isn't that? It's yeah, one

1033
00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:42,080
Speaker 1: of the I uh, I worked in a place that

1034
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:44,960
Speaker 1: had waged theft. I don't think I was ever deprived

1035
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 1: of paid overtime or anything. But there's a lot of

1036
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 1: people who just straight up didn't get paychecks and stuff,

1037
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:52,120
Speaker 1: and then we all talked about it. It's like, well,

1038
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:54,279
Speaker 1: it seems like there's nothing we can do. We can

1039
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:56,440
Speaker 1: try and fight and lose and then get sucked over

1040
00:53:56,480 --> 00:53:59,839
Speaker 1: and then everyone gets sucked over or get fired, and yeah,

1041
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:01,560
Speaker 1: we won't be able to pay rent, will be out

1042
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:04,759
Speaker 1: of our houses now because of legal protections, will be

1043
00:54:04,800 --> 00:54:06,920
Speaker 1: out of our houses in thirty days as opposed to

1044
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 1: the same day. But like you know, um, things you

1045
00:54:11,200 --> 00:54:14,520
Speaker 1: might conclude that things aren't as much better as they

1046
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:16,680
Speaker 1: should be, and some people might conclude that maybe some

1047
00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:19,280
Speaker 1: folks need to be putting red bandanas around the barrels

1048
00:54:19,280 --> 00:54:22,360
Speaker 1: of rifles today, but that's outside of my purview to

1049
00:54:22,480 --> 00:54:27,640
Speaker 1: advise as a podcast host. UM. So, the battle between

1050
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:30,480
Speaker 1: labor and the bosses continues, and today it largely does

1051
00:54:30,520 --> 00:54:33,400
Speaker 1: so without unions on the side of labor. Um Unions

1052
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:35,359
Speaker 1: are are a lot less common than they were back then,

1053
00:54:35,360 --> 00:54:37,600
Speaker 1: and they have a lot less power. Uh. Strikes are

1054
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:40,959
Speaker 1: not a thing of the past entirely, um, but they

1055
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:43,080
Speaker 1: aren't They don't have the teeth that they used to,

1056
00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:47,200
Speaker 1: although in two nineteen UM the threat of airline stewardess

1057
00:54:47,239 --> 00:54:49,680
Speaker 1: is striking uh An. Air traffic control is just not

1058
00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:53,160
Speaker 1: being able to handle working without pay. During the government shutdown,

1059
00:54:53,480 --> 00:54:55,680
Speaker 1: UM showed us that the mere threat of such things

1060
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:58,440
Speaker 1: and the right industries can bring swift concessions to the

1061
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:02,479
Speaker 1: capitalist class because that fucking that situation ended real quick

1062
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:04,160
Speaker 1: once it looked like the planes weren't gonna be able

1063
00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:09,160
Speaker 1: to fly. Now, the overall situation for labor in America

1064
00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:11,799
Speaker 1: is not great today. Most of us have never known

1065
00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:14,720
Speaker 1: a United States in which labor was organized and capable

1066
00:55:14,719 --> 00:55:16,920
Speaker 1: of acting on a mass scale to achieve its goals.

1067
00:55:17,239 --> 00:55:20,440
Speaker 1: While the new labor rights that FDRs administration put in

1068
00:55:20,480 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 1: place helped to enshrine UM you know protections into law,

1069
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:26,320
Speaker 1: and these were very important, the fact that unions basically

1070
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:28,719
Speaker 1: bowed to the federal government and letting them set all

1071
00:55:28,719 --> 00:55:31,680
Speaker 1: this meant that successive generations of politicians have been able

1072
00:55:31,680 --> 00:55:34,600
Speaker 1: to steadily chisel away at labor rights while unions slowly

1073
00:55:34,640 --> 00:55:38,400
Speaker 1: declined in power and influence. The struggle of labor is

1074
00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:40,799
Speaker 1: the struggle of folks like you and me to live

1075
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:44,040
Speaker 1: a decent life. Our predecessors fought and bled for a

1076
00:55:44,040 --> 00:55:46,680
Speaker 1: five day, forty hour work week. They picked up guns,

1077
00:55:46,719 --> 00:55:48,520
Speaker 1: and they braved machine gun fire for the right to

1078
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:51,399
Speaker 1: organize themselves, to speak their mind, and to live independent lives.

1079
00:55:51,480 --> 00:55:53,799
Speaker 1: Is something more than slaves of the wealthy. Now the

1080
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:57,200
Speaker 1: next chapter of this history, uh, the chapter that podcast

1081
00:55:57,200 --> 00:55:59,359
Speaker 1: hosts will be talking about in another hundred years. This

1082
00:55:59,440 --> 00:56:02,080
Speaker 1: is not yet and written. But everyone listening here now

1083
00:56:02,120 --> 00:56:03,960
Speaker 1: has a chance to be one of the authors of

1084
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:07,120
Speaker 1: this history. Uh. And I'd like to end this episode

1085
00:56:07,480 --> 00:56:10,560
Speaker 1: once we once we plug our plug doubles with another song,

1086
00:56:11,120 --> 00:56:15,240
Speaker 1: another Union ballot by one of America's great folk musicians. Um,

1087
00:56:15,520 --> 00:56:18,040
Speaker 1: whose side are you one? This is also by by

1088
00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:20,920
Speaker 1: Mr Pete Seeker. As you sit in quarantine waiting for

1089
00:56:20,920 --> 00:56:23,120
Speaker 1: whatever the future has in store for us, I think

1090
00:56:23,160 --> 00:56:25,319
Speaker 1: it's it's good to ask yourself the same question that

1091
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:27,879
Speaker 1: Pete asks everybody in this song. So we're gonna we're

1092
00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:29,880
Speaker 1: gonna play ourselves up with that. But Spencer, do you

1093
00:56:29,920 --> 00:56:33,799
Speaker 1: first want to plug your plug doubles? Uh? Yeah, at

1094
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:36,360
Speaker 1: the six sler on all the things it's spelled like

1095
00:56:36,400 --> 00:56:39,000
Speaker 1: it sounds. If you can't spell it, that's fine. You're

1096
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 1: probably better off. Um, and I did a podcast called

1097
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 1: Harmon Town. Um, you could listen to the ads. I'm

1098
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:49,759
Speaker 1: pretty proud of those ads. I'm not super proud of

1099
00:56:49,840 --> 00:56:52,359
Speaker 1: my other output on the podcast. I mean it's fine.

1100
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:54,359
Speaker 1: It's just like you know, I was just hanging out.

1101
00:56:54,400 --> 00:56:57,360
Speaker 1: It was just some bullshit. But yeah, that's some stuff.

1102
00:56:57,400 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 1: Harmon Quest is a show I did. It's ah, we

1103
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:01,920
Speaker 1: played D and D and then animated. I think it's

1104
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:06,960
Speaker 1: pretty accessible. If you love DN D and your friends

1105
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:08,719
Speaker 1: just don't get it, you might want to show it

1106
00:57:08,800 --> 00:57:12,719
Speaker 1: to them. Um, I don't know. But but really it's

1107
00:57:12,760 --> 00:57:19,200
Speaker 1: about Robert. You know what is this is really about you?

1108
00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 1: Not me? You? So this is this is about all

1109
00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:26,280
Speaker 1: of us. Uh. My only plugs are are our website

1110
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:29,680
Speaker 1: behind the Bastards dot com, our podcast on Instagram at

1111
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:32,880
Speaker 1: bastards Pod, and my podcast The Women's War, which has

1112
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:35,760
Speaker 1: a lot to say about systems that might be set

1113
00:57:35,840 --> 00:57:38,360
Speaker 1: up that might work a little better than some that

1114
00:57:38,400 --> 00:57:40,840
Speaker 1: we have today. So maybe listen to that. Uh and

1115
00:57:41,040 --> 00:58:09,560
Speaker 1: right now listen to Mr Pete Seeger. Come all of you,

1116
00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:14,520
Speaker 1: good workers, good news do you. I'll tell of how

1117
00:58:14,680 --> 00:58:18,600
Speaker 1: the good old Union has come in here doo dwell,

1118
00:58:19,760 --> 00:58:24,280
Speaker 1: Which side are you all? Which side are you are?

1119
00:58:26,600 --> 00:58:31,360
Speaker 1: My daddy was a minor, and I'm a minor's son,

1120
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:37,040
Speaker 1: and I'll stick with the Union till every battle's one.

1121
00:58:38,160 --> 00:58:42,840
Speaker 1: Which side are you all? Which side are you all?

1122
00:58:46,240 --> 00:58:51,040
Speaker 1: They say in Harlem County EI. There are no neutrals there.

1123
00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:55,240
Speaker 1: You'll either be a union man or a thug for

1124
00:58:55,560 --> 00:59:00,840
Speaker 1: j H. Player, Which side are you all on? Which

1125
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:08,880
Speaker 1: side are you are? Or workers? Can you stand it?

1126
00:59:09,240 --> 00:59:13,320
Speaker 1: Or tell me how you can? Will you be a

1127
00:59:13,480 --> 00:59:18,760
Speaker 1: lousy scavel? Will you be, young man? Which side are

1128
00:59:18,840 --> 00:59:26,760
Speaker 1: you all? Which side are you are? Don't scab for

1129
00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:32,080
Speaker 1: the bosses, don't listen to their lives. Those poor folks

1130
00:59:32,120 --> 00:59:37,640
Speaker 1: haven't got a chance unless we organize. Which side are

1131
00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:43,080
Speaker 1: you are? Which side are you all? Which side are

1132
00:59:43,200 --> 00:59:46,360
Speaker 1: you are? Which side are you are?